


Miami

by toli-a (togina)



Category: Justified
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Season/Series Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 08:15:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17825144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togina/pseuds/toli-a
Summary: Boyd hates Miami.





	Miami

Boyd hates Miami. He tells Raylan so every day, comes slamming into their house after work barking about how he “nearly committed vehicular homicide three times today, Raylan,” and, “did you not consign me to this fiery hell to circumvent my return to a life of crime, Raylan? Will they still charge me if the pedestrian in question walks into the grill of my truck?”

If he’s not complaining about the traffic, it’s the weather: too hot, too muggy, God never intended for men like Boyd and Raylan to wear shorts, and He certainly never intended for anyone to buy those floral swim trunks Raylan wears.

If the weather’s not bad—if it’s December or January, and the day after a storm cuts through the humidity and the heat—and the traffic is miraculously without affront, Boyd complains about how flat Miami is, how ridiculous looking palm trees are, the size of the cockroaches, and who wants to live in a place that feels as flat as a movie set, huh? “One day I’ll swing open this door and the whole facade will come toppling down,” Boyd proclaims with fervor, swinging their door open and shut a few times to emphasize his point and letting all the AC out into the yard.

Boyd hates Miami. He hates the traffic and hates the weather and hates how flat it is, hates looking out to the horizon without being enfolded by the hills. He hates Raylan’s swimsuit and he hates rubbing aloe vera into his shoulders because he refuses to wear sunscreen and seems surprised every time he burns.

Raylan always offers Boyd an alternative to his continued suffering. “I could drive you back to Tramble whenever you’d like,” he tells Boyd, magnanimous, sprawled across their sofa and waiting on Boyd to step out of his boots and sit down. He’s halfway through his beer, the bottle sweating another ring into the coffee table, because Boyd complains that Raylan wouldn’t reach for a coaster even if it were a fugitive from the law. “Prison feel real enough to you?”

“Handcuff me now,” Boyd replies, hangs his keys on the hooks he screwed into the wall by the door, unlaces his boots and sets them in the tray that Winona and Richard bought them after listening to Boyd gripe about scrubbing mud off their nice floors, though it’s Raylan who seems to get stuck with the mop. Then he strides over the sofa, leans over the back of it to give Raylan a lingering kiss. “We can drive back to Tramble at first light.” He comes around the sofa and steals Raylan’s beer, throat working as he gulps it down and then exhales. “No, wait. We’ve got Willa this weekend. You’ll have to hold onto those handcuffs til next week.”

“Kinky,” Raylan says dryly, kicks at Boyd’s lazy bones with his socked feet and goes into their kitchen to fetch two more beers. He checks the calendar that Boyd put on the fridge, but Boyd’s right, of course; they’re picking Willa up tomorrow after school. Boyd knows exactly when Willa’s coming—he sat down with her and Winona and the calendar, marked all the “Willa days” in red Sharpie, because “Willa is a red-letter sort of girl.”

“Like in that book about the adulteress?” Raylan queried, frowning, and Boyd rolled his eyes. “That particular letter was scarlet,” he informed Raylan, with a long-suffering sigh. “And don’t you go giving our girl ideas.”

Boyd comes in behind him to fetch plates for the take out Raylan brought home from Boyd’s favorite restaurant in Little Havana, says they need plates to keep Raylan from spilling plantains all over the sofa they bought last year. He moves with easy familiarity around the house he forced Raylan to buy because “a girl should have a real home, Raylan, even if that home is in this godforsaken perdition of a place.” It’s Boyd who tends to the palm tree in their front yard, Boyd who fretted over its missing fronds when the last hurricane blew through.

Boyd insists they eat on plates with real forks likes civilized men raising a daughter, even when Raylan points out that that ain’t how they were raised. He dishes food onto the plates in the dinnerware set he bought himself as a wedding present, the week they married at the courthouse with Willa and Winona and Richard and Dan all there to see. Dan gave them the framed picture that hangs in their front hall: Boyd tipping Raylan’s hat back and leaning in, Raylan laughing, the sun gleaming off his teeth and off Boyd’s brand new wedding ring.

“Let’s take Willa to the beach this weekend,” Raylan says, leans back into Boyd when he reaches around Raylan for the silverware drawer.

Boyd sets his chin on Raylan’s shoulder and sighs. “I suppose I’ll buy stock in aloe vera,” he replies, presses his lips to the shell of Raylan’s ear. “Wouldn’t want to spend the ride to Tramble aching from sunburn.”

“You’ll spend it aching either way,” Raylan warns him, twists around in Boyd’s loose embrace so he can press his forehead to Boyd’s temple, his nose to the stubble on Boyd’s cheek.

“We gonna eat this dinner you brought us, cowboy, or are we gonna dance?”

“Best get to the dancing now,” Raylan murmurs, “since you’re so determined to go.”

They eat dinner instead, on their wedding china, the evening news a low hum in the background. After dinner Raylan switches it over to music, to the songs from their childhood, from their hills. Boyd obliges him, comes to his feet and clogs around the living room, his bare feet nimble on their floors. Raylan watches him, for a while, and then comes off the sofa and pulls Boyd into a different sort of dance.

* * *

They pick Willa up on Friday, and Raylan warns her that he’s “sending your daddy back to prison, come Monday morn.”

“All right,” Willa shrugs, licking at her ice cream cone. “Can we go to the beach tomorrow, Daddy Boyd? One last time before you go?” She bats her eyelashes at them in the rearview mirror, then rolls her eyes once she thinks they’ve looked away. “Like I ain’t heard this song before,” she mutters, and Raylan glances over and shares a quiet chuckle with Boyd.

* * *

They go to the beach early on Saturday morning in a vain attempt to avoid the traffic. Boyd cuts off two SUVs and nearly cuts off a police car, cusses a blue streak when he swerves back into his lane that sends Raylan reaching behind him to cover Willa’s ears. “They’re all words you taught me, Daddy,” she declares. “And besides, if Daddy Boyd’s going back to Kentucky, we’d better listen while we can. And get ice cream one last time,” she adds, as though she hadn’t had ice cream yesterday and probably each day before.

“She’s your daughter,” Raylan and Boyd say at the same time, and Willa rolls her eyes.

They set up camp on the beach, chairs and towels and an umbrella that tips drunkenly to one side. Raylan slathers sunscreen on a begrudging Boyd who slathers it on Willa, her blonde hair blowing every which way because neither Raylan nor Boyd can do more than a rudimentary braid.

“Let’s go swimming now,” Willa pleads, dragging Boyd up by his hand. “One last time, Daddy.”

They wade out into the water, morning sun glittering over the waves, the water warm and blue, the waves strong enough to knock Raylan sideways into Boyd.

Willa begs to be picked up, because she’s being raised by a pack of dogs, apparently, and Boyd hauls her up and tosses her into an oncoming wave, her delighted laughter bouncing off the water, her wet hair glowing in the sun.

“You sure you want to go?” Raylan inquires, after Boyd and Willa start a splashing contest they’re obviously both going to lose, since neither of them have Raylan’s aim. “I know there ain’t no traffic or palm trees in prison, but Kentucky’s awful far away.”

“Yeah!” Willa concurs, holds her arms out until Boyd picks her up, even though she’s far too big to be carried these days. “Stay.”

“Well.” Boyd cocks his head, hums like he’s thinking it over. Willa starts listing all the things they have in Miami, from oranges to strawberries to all her favorite flavors of ice cream. Raylan sticks his hands in the pockets of his floral swim trunks, rocks back with the waves and waits on Boyd. Boyd hates the traffic and the weather and the flat line of the horizon, hates that they run the AC all year. Boyd hates Miami, he does, but -

“I suppose I could endure a little while longer,” Boyd acquiesces, and Willa cheers the way she does every time. Boyd kisses her forehead, leans over and kisses the corner of Raylan’s grin. “Despite everything, I suppose I might have a few good reasons to stay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Credit to acorrespondence for describing moving from the hills to somewhere flat as feeling unreal, like you're in a movie set. I absolutely love the idea and may use it in every single forthcoming story.


End file.
